Civil Rights movement

The Civil Rights movement was an African-American social movement that fought for equal rights with white Americans from 1954 to 1968, with men such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X leading the movement. Backed by the liberal wings of the US Democratic Party and the US Republican Party and by labor unions and major religious denominations, the Civil Rights movement used "civil disobedience" and the constitutional right to protest peacefully to achieve its goals. The movement took part in famous protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. The movement achieved the ratification of the 24th Amendment (which abolished poll taxes, allowing for poor people to vote), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but its leaders Dr. King and Malcolm X would become martyrs, being assassinated by opponents of the cause. Despite achieving more freedoms, African-Americans were still oppressed in the following decades, living in de facto segregation in inner city ghettoes, going to different schools than white students, being racially stereotyped, and being targeted by racist policemen.